Sanctuary
by Justine Harker
Summary: When work is too boring and it's too lonely to stay home one more Friday night, Ciel heads out to see what sort of trouble this new city has to offer. Rewritten from the original posting by the same name on Ao3.
1. Save Yourself

"Are you sure you have everything?" The officer stood on the sidewalk, his arms crossed over his thick chest as he watched me drag the last duffle bag full of my clothes down the steps of my apartment building. I tossed the bag down into the snow and fumbled to get the keys out of my pocket.

"Yeah, just these three bags."

"Son, I can't keep coming out here every time you get into a fight with your boyfriend."

"No, this is it. I'm not coming back." I took the apartment key off my key ring and handed it to the officer. "Thanks for waiting with me," I said.

"I hate to see domestic violence," was what he said, but the unfinished sentiment was " _even if it is between fags._ "

"Just the same, I appreciate it."

"Your cab is here," he nodded his shaved head and mirrored glasses towards the car that slowed to a careful stop in the slush. The boot of the car popped open and a friendly older man hopped out and began to scoop up my bags from the curb.

"Take this kid to the airport, okay?" The cabby nodded to the officer and then smiled at me. I didn't bother to look back at the apartment building as we drove away. I knew he would be watching me, all blond hair and sharp blue eyes. He ignored me as I packed my things and refused to speak while the officer was in the apartment, but I knew he wouldn't be able to resist watching me go.

He didn't think I'd do it, I thought as we drove in silence to the airport. He probably still thought I would come back. Maybe not today, but before the weekend was out, he expected me to slink back home and endure whatever punishment he invented for me. What he didn't know was something inside of me had broken and I no longer felt a stifling panic at the thought of being without him. What I felt was relief. Numb, but sweet and beautiful relief.

"Are you alright?" the driver asked. I looked up to see he was watching me in the rearview mirror. My face was still half covered by bandages and I knew I looked like living death.

"Yeah," I managed, still amazed I could sink into this new numbness and not feel anything at all.

"You look like you've been through hell."

What can you say to a comment like that? Rather than respond I merely fixed my good eye out the window and watched the winter landscape speed past until the car pulled up at the terminal.

"Safe travels," the driver said as he set my bags down on the curb. I tried to hand him money but he insisted the ride was already taken care of. So, I stood at the entrance of Montreal-Trudeau with travelers moving past me like water around a rock sat stubbornly in a stream. The world was still spinning. The clock was still ticking. _You need to check in and get on a plane, Ciel._

I shook myself and picked up my things, squaring my shoulders and setting boots to the pavement with purpose.

…

"Ciel, the American!" my aunt exclaimed as I finally emerged from customs at Logan Airport. Her hair was offensively red, as was her wool jacket, but she smelled like Chanel as she pulled me into her arms and crushed my face to her chest.

"Christ woman, can't you see I'm injured?"

"Yes, my grim child, I know. I have already booked you with my plastic surgeon for Monday morning. Don't worry. You have your father's handsome face and your mother's good genes, you'll be just fine. Just fine!"

Somehow, Aunt Ann managed to get me and my belongings into her BMW and we were racing through the outskirts of Boston. It was dark and she drove like her ass was on fire. The tiny flecks of early snow that bounced off the windscreen reminded me of stars.

"I'm really glad you decided to come here, Ciel. I've missed you. I worried."

"I know."

"Since your parents…" the rest of the sentence hung in the air much like the officer's comment earlier that afternoon.

"Since they died," I finished for her.

"Yes." She went quiet for the rest of the journey and said very little even as we arrived at her townhouse some 45 minutes later.

"Darling, Grell will help with your bags if you want to go inside and make yourself comfortable. I'm sure you're exhausted."

I had nearly forgotten about Grell, my Aunt's partner.

Aunt Ann had been married before I was born but her husband had died. From what I remember my mother saying, Aunt Ann was different then, a young med student, a homemaker, the kind of aunt who insisted on having everyone from the extended family to her house every Christmas. Then her husband died and she threw everything into her career. Understandable to me as she had now become the leading OB-GYN specialist in the northeast, but she was strange.

Aside from her affinity for the color red, Aunt Ann also had a penchant for luxury items. Everything from her handbags and shoes to her iPhone case and dog leash were either Burberry or Aquascutum and her townhouse was no different. I wasn't unfamiliar with the lifestyle she enjoyed, my parents had money and left me with a trust when they passed, but it didn't hold the same interest for me it seemed to for my aunt.

In addition to her other designer belongings was Grell, her live-in boyfriend, or partner, or arm candy. I was never sure what term to use as her description of the man was constantly changing. All I could say for sure was he had yet to earn the title of husband and it didn't seem like he ever would.

Grell greeted us at the door, giving my aunt a wide smile and bending to pull me into a hug. He was tall and thin, impeccably dressed with long, auburn hair pulled back in a low ponytail. He would have been perfectly at ease at an art gallery or maybe teaching a lit class at the local college, but here he was haunting the foyer of this plush townhouse instead. Strange and overly friendly, but pleasant enough. I couldn't really complain when I had been welcomed into their home.

My bags spread out on my new temporary bed, I looked at the extent of my belongings, comfortingly black against the clean neutral colors of the room. Somehow my entire life had been distilled down to fit into this small room in the space of one afternoon.

There was a soft knock at the door and then my aunt's perfectly made-up peeked through the doorway.

"Do you have everything you need, darling?"

"Yes, I think so."

She looked at my face carefully with a slight frown. "Are you in any pain?"

"A bit. But I'll be fine."

A few graceful steps and she sat down beside me on the bed. "Would you let me take a look?" She meant the bandage. The horrible ruin that was behind it. I didn't say anything but felt my stomach go cold as though it was suddenly full of ice water.

"I understand." She had a weak smile on her ruby lips, her voice was soft. "Can I ask...is the eye still there?"

"Yes. But it's ruined."

"You'll make it through this, darling. I know it probably doesn't seem that way right now, but you will come through just fine. And in the meantime, anything you need, just ask."

I wanted to say something to acknowledge the kindness she had extended, but I couldn't seem to get my mouth to form the words. I merely stared at her as she stared back at me, her eyes traveling back and forth across my face, trying to read my expression, or maybe my mind. Or maybe she was just imagining the damaged flesh that was hidden from her curiosity by the layers of white gauze. Whatever it was, she stopped finally and left me to the quiet of my room, surrounded by black clothing, a handful of books and my laptop. I don't know how long I sat, or what time it was when exhaustion finally claimed me, but it was the scent of coffee brewing and bacon frying that roused me again once daylight had filled the small room.

Somehow I had survived the first night of my new life.


	2. Trash

"God-fucking-damnit!" I lost my grip on the end of a massive guitar cabinet that had the blond idiot on the stupid end. The black box slammed down to the pavement with a crack, missing the toe of my boot by an inch.

"Hold on, I've got a call," Bard growled back, digging some ancient cellphone out of his jeans pocket.

"I swear to god if you injure me because you're chasing pussy I will leave your ass in Queens."

I was silenced by the grizzled old man turning his back on me to speak into the phone, though his voice was so loud and barking the gesture hardly afforded him privacy. I sat down on the cabinet and stuck a cigarette between my lips, contemplating the evening crowd that moved around us as though we were invisible.

"Yeah? Yeah? Right. Are you gonna be there? I don't fucking know, second probably. We always get the shitty middle slot. No, no. Bassy drove the van."

"Fuck you."

"Sorry. _Sebastian_ drove. That better, princess?"

Bard hung up the phone and dug out a cigarette of his own. A police car did a slow drive by, the officer making a point of making eye contact with both of us where we sat, taking up space on the sidewalk. I looked at the van, parked half way up on the curb, and knew that he'd be back in a few minutes to give us shit.

Every weekend I was in some random part of the city hauling heavy gear for Bard's shitty punk band; three guys with pawnshop guitars and a borrowed delivery van that still stunk like rotten produce. Every few days it was a different bar, or sometimes the same one a few nights in a row. Sometimes it wasn't even a bar but a veteran's hall or the basement of a squat tenement where the crust punks had rigged up electricity and had a table set up with free vegan food and a donation jar for the keg. They would play anywhere that invited them, and I would invariably follow.

But why was I here?

Because I wasn't at the tattoo shop.

When my mentor got into one of his moods, he was intolerable. The shop already resembled more of a real undertaker's salon than a tattoo studio. It was cluttered, the walls covered with "funeral coach parking only" signs and any number of memento mori photographs and headstone artworks, piles of bones everywhere and more than a few taxidermy crows. On his bad days, my mentor preferred talking to the mummified corpse he kept in the shop. We would go days without saying more than two words to each other, but I would hear him muttering under his breath and laughing. I would start getting twitchy at some point around Thursday and by the time Bard was getting ready to book another show, I was already backing the van up to our apartment steps to get the crappy gear loaded up.

I was no stranger to the more obscure and deviant subcultures of NYC, but the funeral obsession was not something I pretended to understand. The Undertaker's level of interest in death and the symbolism and ceremony that went with it was far beyond my own morbidity, and I was a morbid mother fucker. I didn't ask a lot of questions, nor did I make a habit of going over to his side of the shop.

The mummy, Apophis as he was named by the Undertaker, was displayed against the wall near his tattooing station, wooden casket open to the air and a faint scent of spices an dust coming from the bandaged corpse itself. Once the health inspectors really started cracking down on our industry, they made Undertaker put the dead guy in a glass case and pack away some of the other curiosities to keep the shop sanitary and up to code. That didn't seem to deter the conversation between the two of them.

The profession must have been a bit different when the old man started his shop. In fact, tattooing was illegal in New York City until 1997, so the work done wasn't regulated in a standard way, but the undertaker was strict in his methods and demanded perfection of work. Somedays he seemed almost human, the kinda guy you could grab a beer with after work and shoot the shit, while other days he barely acknowledged the living.

Still, the shop was the best home I had, and I probably wouldn't have left if my mentor didn't drive me to it.

"Come on you lazy bastard. We gotta get this shit inside before the cop comes back," I said.

Bard grunted and flicked his cigarette into the street. The gig was in dive called Queen Vic's in Woodside. The traffic wasn't as thick as it was in Brooklyn, but I had a feeling the crowd would also be light once the music got going. Not that anyone in their right mind would want to listen to the badly tuned cacophony that was _Hand Grenade Helper_ , but there was a small but loyal following that the band had managed to cultivate. Of course, some of that was a result of Bard's former band, _Bleeding Uterus_ , which supposedly had the drummer from _Leftover Crack_ , but I figured Bard was full of shit.

I hated going into bars in the daylight. I could see every cockroach and piss stain in the place and because I was driving, I couldn't even have a beer to dull my disgust. Once the lights were down and the crowd filtered in and the music drowned out everything else, I could ignore it, but with just the four of us and the bar staff, it was almost intolerable.

"I need a cigarette." The magic words that would get me out of most any situation. I propped open the back door and leaned against the outside wall, far enough from the dumpster that I couldn't see what the rats were fighting over, and stared off across the neighborhood as the sun began to set.

I wasn't that much different than my mentor, I realized. I wasn't talking to corpses, but I was a moody son of a bitch with a growing sense of dread, and I knew something was going to break.

A bunch of young kids in the parking lot struggled with a brand new Marshall half stack, getting it partially out of a hatchback car before they stopped to take a break. They were loud and crude and obnoxious. Probably high as shit. New band t-shirts and new tattoos. Generic and quickly done; of course, I had to judge the artwork, it was a professional hazard. What a bunch of assholes.

"Heh," Bard grunted from the wall beside me.

"Yeah," I agreed, sighing out a stream of smoke through my nose.

"I fucking miss those days, though."

"Shit. Me too, man."


	3. Sleep

***This chapter is dedicated to St. Ciel, my beautiful wife and muse who is adept at kicking me in the ass to make sure that I keep writing.***

At some point, I must have been a different person. I can't see it now, can't even imagine it as I look back at the last year of my life. At some point, I looked at someone with soft blond hair and sky blue eyes and fell into his spell. My heart was younger and more resilient. It beat with furious determination even as it was being pierced. It pumped away and I kept crawling back.

Even now I look back and feel a twinge of affection for him, a strange little pool of warmth that makes my chest tight and my stomach a little sick. I swat it away like the distasteful thing it is.

He infected me. Somehow he got inside of me and despite everything he had done, every hurtful word, every malicious glance and every cut and bruise on my skin, I still felt a warmth for him. In my mind it felt a lot like the warmth of my own blood spilling onto my cold hands on the night he finally went too far.

But when he was sweet, he was so very sweet. All warm arms and soft hair and smelling like home. He purred in my ear that he wanted me. Never love, always desire. And only when there was nothing else to distract him. It was enough to keep me feeling important, to keep me wanting to strive for more. _How much contact will you give me, how much affection can I have if I do everything you want?_

I know I never loved him. Not like I wanted to anyway. Even when I left there was no sense of loss, only a strange feeling of displacement. Surreal and completely painless, but through it all, my heart kept its steady pace and my body survived.

Is it the first day that's always hardest? I woke up wondering what I was doing in this unfamiliar place. It was my home now. These four walls were my security and sanctuary. Nothing about it felt very comfortable despite the high thread count and the excessive number of throw pillows.

"Now that you live here, my darling, we'll have to look into colleges. You could apply to medical school and even work at the hospital with me if you wanted to."

"I don't really want to be a gynecologist, Aunt Anne," I said from behind my mug of tea. Even sitting at the breakfast table in her dressing gown my aunt was wearing red. Her makeup was flawless and it wasn't even 7 am.

"Well, you'll have the opportunity to work across a variety of specialties when you do your residency. It doesn't have to be OBGYN, though it's a very rewarding field."

"I'm not sure I have the stamina for medical school."

"Of course. You need time to recover and then there's your surgery. I'm sorry, I'm trying to rush you when what you really need is rest."

"I probably won't be here long enough to enroll in school anyway."

"What? But where else would you go? You're not thinking about going back to Montreal?"

"No. But I can't stay here forever."

"Of course you can, this is your home."

I smiled, tried to, but I don't know what my face actually looked like. I turned back to my tea because it seemed safer. They were used to my silence anyway, though I could feel Aunt Anne and Grell exchanging looks over my head.

I spent the majority of the following two days drifting in and out of sleep. I would wake up forgetting where I was, and then the realization would hit me again, making my brain work, thinking, worrying and vainly trying to logic its way through this situation until I was exhausted and fell back to sleep.

On Monday, I saw the plastic surgeon and she was the first to look at the mess under my bandages since the emergency room doctor wrapped me up. The blood was dried and the skin had begun to heal and the pain was intense though the doctor was being exceedingly careful as she peeled back the layers of gauze. It took a bit of coaxing for me to take a look in the mirror after she did her examination.

"It's not as bad as you think. You should wear an eyepatch while it heals, but after that, I think you'll be just fine," she said.

The lid was difficult to open, but once I did I could see the discolored orb. It was still there even though I couldn't see through it anymore. Very slowly and very painfully, I could blink. While it was still very red and there was a scar running across the skin, the iris itself was oddly purple in color, a noticeable contrast to my other dark blue eye.

"I don't need surgery to have it removed?" I asked.

"No. No, I think it'll be just fine. Do you want me to bring Angela in?"

I didn't get the opportunity to consent before the door opened and my aunt came in to take a look.

"So, what's the diagnosis, Dr. Chapman? Is my nephew going to live?"

"He's just fine. We were just discussing a treatment plan," the doctor said.

"Surgery?"

"No surgery," Dr. Chapman said.

"That's great news!"

It was great news, I suppose. I couldn't really process what it all meant, but I realized that what I was at that moment was what I was always going to be. There was no magical procedure that would make me any different. I wouldn't get the vision back in my eye. And while I wasn't going to lose the eye itself, it was still gone.

In the car on the drive home, my aunt was positively beaming.

"You must be thrilled. No surgery! You're going to be just fine. Dr. Chapman wasn't even worried about the scarring. You're going to heal up good as new."

"Except for my vision," I said flatly.

"Well, yes. But your face is just as handsome as ever, my darling."

I looked out the window, seeing my reflection against the grim suburban landscape. The black eyepatch was more comfortable than the gauze bandages. Certainly less noticeable, but still horrible. I never thought of myself as a vain individual, but I wasn't convinced Aunt Anne was right.

"What did you think of the facility?"

"What?"

"Dr. Chapman's office. It's a state of the art facility. She does amazing work."

"It seemed fine, I guess."

"Ciel, that's just the sort of place you could be if you started med school now. She's a great teacher too. You would love working with her and you'd learn so much."

"I don't think so."

"I know it's a lot to think about, but now that you don't need surgery, you can start thinking about your future. It's the perfect time for a new beginning."

I let myself lapse into silence. The air in the car was charged with all of the things that Aunt Anne wanted to say but that I wouldn't humor. I realized that this wasn't going to stop as long as I stayed with her. She had the best intentions, but what she wanted was a son, a child of her own to carry on her legacy. I was not that child.

Since I was already being quiet, I pulled out my phone and started flipping through my emails. I hadn't opened anything in the last three days and there was an excess of garbage waiting for me. One message in my inbox advertised apartment listings. I must have signed up for a mailing list the last time I was apartment hunting in Montreal after I finished school. I clicked on the link and looked at the search bar: " _Where will you go?"_ it said. I looked out the window and watched as a few street signs flew by at high speed. We had gotten onto the highway now and the green signs were pointing North, one in particular, was "New Hampshire, Maine, and all points North".

North. After I had just come south.

It works for Stephen King, I thought.


	4. I Walk the Line

**My Sebastian is inspired by my own personal demon, though mine manages to stay out of trouble slightly better. This chapter is also dedicated to her and is extra long to keep her entertained.**

When I was 14, I was sleeping on the floor in the apartment that Bard shared with his bandmates. It was filthy and it smelled like mold and dirty laundry. The guys were loud, obnoxious, and drunk nearly all the time. It was a teenager's dream. The building was a squat that was taken over by a group of punks in the late 80s. They'd done some amazing work updating the electrical and fixing the major structural damage, though some of the rooms had holes in the walls and there were windows missing glass. There were definitely more rats than people living there and it certainly wasn't up to code, but it was safe and it wasn't the street.

It was in D-Squat where I met a dude who turned me onto a job opportunity where I could make some quick cash. I could do as much or as little as I wanted as long as I could be fast and keep my mouth shut. Those were two things I figured I excelled at.

I started doing errands for a shady character named Lau who had me running parcels from Chinatown all over the island for a good hunk of cash each time. As long as I didn't ask any questions or pay too much attention to the people I was delivering to, I kept making money.

I grew up knowing how to keep my mouth shut and my head down, but I was also a bit of an opportunist. When the chance arose, I began to skim a bit from the packages. Sometimes I would sell it, but I was curious and eventually started to use it myself.

One of my errands brought me to a tattoo shop in Brooklyn called the Crypt. It was here I met the strange man who would become my mentor and would save me from whatever horrible life I was setting myself up for. I was immediately obsessed by the walls of flash and the kitschy horror movie vibe of the shop and broke my rule of staying silent and ventured to talk to the man who called himself the Undertaker.

The Undertaker was a fixture on the little street in Brooklyn where he kept his shop. He was younger than the long mop of gray hair would suggest and despite his strange demeanor and propensity for laughing to himself for no reason, he was immediately friendly towards me. I figured there was more to him than appearance, after all most of the people I hung looked like they ate of dumpsters, but once I saw him work, watched as bottled of ink and bundles of needles turned plain flesh into living works of art, I appreciated his brilliance. There was a reason so many put up with his eccentricities because there was magic in the work of this artist.

I found any reason to end up in his shop and soon began cleaning up and running errands for him as well as Lau. For my 15th birthday, the Undertaker gave me my first tattoo, a koi fish in traditional Japanese style that I had so come to admire. He explained the tattoo was not only a beautiful image, but a symbol I would carry with me for life. A koi can climb a waterfall without concern for the current and will face the knife of a fisherman without fear much like a warrior facing the sword. Once the design was applied to the skin, I felt like I had been imbued with some of these properties through my skin and ink talisman.

He told me other stories about men who carried their own koi tattoos; Japanese warriors, bikers, gangsters, and sailors and so many other artists he listed by name that my head was soon full of an obsessive love for this craft. It was that day I realized I wanted to tattoo and I asked if it was possible.

"Is it possible? Anything is possible. What are you willing to do to make it possible? That's the question," the Undertaker answered cryptically. He sat hunched in his long black coat, hair in his eyes, a grin on his face as he watched me.

"What would I have to do?" I asked.

"You'd need a machine," he said kicking the little box at his feet. "And you'd need someone to take you on as an apprentice. You can't learn this at school." The last statement had him dissolving into a steady fit of laughter.

"What else?" I asked when he stopped wheezing and became silent again.

"You need to draw every day. I mean, every day. You got me?"

"I can do that."

The Undertaker nodded but said nothing else. He left me to figure out the rest on my own. I started to save every extra cent I had to buy my own machine, though I sidetracked occasionally by the work I did for Lau and was still skimming off tiny bits every time I wanted to get high. That unfortunately became more frequent as time went on.

Bard never said as much, but I could sense that his patience with me was running thin around that time. When I wasn't at the tattoo shop or running packages, I was lugging gear to and from music gigs with Bard. You would think I would have been busy enough to stay out of trouble, but eventually it still found me.

"Are you fucking sure about this?" Bard asked for the third time as I shaved the fine blond hair from his upper arm.

"Shut up, pussy. It'll be fine. I know what I'm doing."

The Undertaker looked on with a steady giggle in his throat as I prepped my first human client for a tattoo. Before this, I had been relegated to pig skin in the form of random dismembered body parts gifted to me by my mentor. I was used to his style of teaching and knew that despite his inattentive demeanor, he was in fact watching and would step in with instruction, though perhaps too cryptically worded that it would take me some effort to unravel it before any serious mistakes were made.

The stencil went onto Bard's skin easier than it had on the cold, stiff pig's skin and I remembered what the Undertaker had said about tattooing a living client.

"The ink will go in easier, so you won't need to push it so hard. Remember, they're alive. Usually. And they can feel it. Whether or not you care about that is up to you, but remember not to go into it pushing hard. Keep your lines clean. You can always go deeper and darker, but you can't back off once you've gone too deep."

It turns out that would be good advice for a few aspects of my life beyond tattooing, but in this instance, I was dealing with Bard and I didn't want to hurt him necessarily. Even if he was sort of like a pig.

When my needle first hit his arm and I saw how the ink exploded into the skin I was so hooked I knew I had found what I was meant to do with my life. It was unfortunate that this same day a couple of cops would pick me up on my way out of Chinatown with a backpack full of heroin. I used my one phone call to apologize to the Undertaker and to ask him to put my gear someplace safe where Bard wouldn't find it and sell it while I was gone.

My years as a courier came with the essential training to keep my mouth shut and I spent hours on end looking blankly at an assortment of police officers and social workers until my fate was decided. The attorney who was appointed to me pushed the fact that the backpack wasn't mine and I had no knowledge of its contents, but without a name of its owner I was still nailed with possession. Somehow I escaped any charges involving my intent to sell.

I served a year and a half as a minor in a corrections facility. The time away allowed me to finish my high school education. I also decided to learn as much about auto mechanics, strength training, and art, just for good measure. It was a college crash course in life that spat me out when I was 18, somewhat worse for the wear, but also a fuck of a lot smarter.

Bard had moved out of the squat by the time I got out and was living with a girlfriend who had gotten him in with a different group of jerks, this time deathrockers and rivetheads. Basically the goth kids who listened to heavier music and wore more leather. He was still hauling gear and playing gigs, but now it was behind the Bowery and it was sometimes just DJ gear instead of guitar rigs. He was still the same asshole, but now he made it a habit to wear goggles around his neck.

The Undertaker was much the same as when I left him. When I stepped back into the shop he said not a word about what had happened or where I had been but asked if I had been drawing.

"Every day," I responded.

"Have you been tattooing?"

"No. There was no way to keep it clean." Actually, I had many opportunities to tattoo in prison, but I couldn't tolerate the idea of doing it wrong and unlearning any of the good habits I had built so I stuck with drawing.

"Good. I saved you a pig."

About a week after I was released, the Undertaker started on my demon tattoo.

"It's been on your back this whole time anyway," he said.

"What has?" I asked as he drew it out on my back with a red permanent marker. He had me sitting in an old massage chair, or maybe it was one of those backwards chairs girls sometimes had in front of their vanity tables. Either way my knees were locked in and my back was exposed while he explained the tattoo in his own insightful way.

"He's been clawing at you since I met you, kid. We're just going to give him a face so you can remember how ugly he is."

...

By the time I was 21, I had been working regularly with clients for two years and the Undertaker was confident enough in my work to send me to conventions to represent the shop. Honestly, I think the old man was becoming too eccentric to work with the general public. He seemed to do better in his own shop with clients coming to him who already knew what they were in for.

Of course he was well known in the tattoo community and when I did my first big show in London, I drew a lot of attention. Strangers would shake my hand or slap me on the back after seeing that I wore a convention badge naming "the Crypt, Brooklyn NYC" as my home shop. The name was well known and I had a reputation to live up to.

I was assigned to share a booth with the most straightlaced, stuck up looking tattoo artist I had ever encountered. He showed up with his black rolling equipment case, not a scratch or a sticker on it, wearing a black suit with a pressed white shirt and black tie.

"Hey," I offered my hand in greeting. "Claude, is it?" I said looking at his convention ID that hung against the front of his suit.

"Yes. And you are Sebastian, the first and only apprentice the Undertaker has ever taken on."

"You know him?"

"There's not a soul in this entire venue who does not know the Undertaker. He is, how should I put this...infamous."

"Not a fan?" I asked. I felt myself bristle a bit at his attitude.

"I prefer a more subdued and elegant style," he said.

"So how'd you end up stuck sharing a booth with a freak like me?"

The dude decided to ignore me while he set up his end of the booth, unfurling a shop banner for Kumo Tattoo. Everything was clean and professional, black and red, lacking basic personality which seemed in keeping with the man himself. Conversely, my setup included the macabre themed banner for the Crypt, created with artwork that the Undertaker had painted directly onto the silk years and years ago. I also brought a skull to hold business cards. Besides my actual tattoo gear, I figured that was all I needed. It wasn't the sleek set up that my neighbor seemed to have going, but it fit the shop I was there to represent.

"I guess it's probably luck of the draw, huh? Just randomly putting people together so they can become new friends?" I tried again.

"That's cheerfully optimistic, but wrong. I was asked to share this space with you."

"Asked by who? No one asked me."

"That's abundantly clear and I'm afraid that a bit of a joke was had at both of our expense."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Again the passive aggressive ignoring technique was employed to diffuse my questions.

"Claude," I said walking around to the front of his table and leaning in close. "I know we're not friends yet, but you should be aware that I don't give up easily and I don't take fucking polite social cues. So, pretty please, tell me what the fuck you're talking about."

The man sighed and pushed his square-lens glasses up his nose. "Very well. I believe your mentor meant for us to…" he trailed off, clearing his throat.

"What? No, come on, man. Tell me."

"Date. He meant for us to hook up, or whatever the common parlance is within the community."

For the first time in my miserable life I didn't have a smart comeback. My poor brain short circuited as I tried to process his words. I had not once said anything to anyone at the shop about my sexual preference. Deliberately, I ignored that entire portion of my existence in the interest of merely surviving and learning my craft. So, why would anyone, and why in particular would the Undertaker think that I was interested in men? And why the fuck would anyone think I would be interested in this man in particular?

"You're gay?" is what eventually fell out of my mouth as I looked at the dweeb in front of me. He stopped fiddling with his ink setup to regard me fully.

"It's days like today that I wonder what has become of my life. I work hard to maintain a level of professionalism that is generally unheard of in this profession. I cultivate my art and grow a respectable client base, yet, here I am looking at you and dealing with this ridiculous situation."

"What's wrong with looking at me?"

Claude audibly exhaled and adjusted his glasses as if the very sight of me was enough to affect his vision.

"You're used to having your looks disarm people. You don't rely on your mind and when confronted with any minor conflict you default to this tough guy persona or whatever it is you think you're doing."

"You're a real dick, you know that?"

"I've been told as much."

"So, what you're saying is you don't want to fuck me?" I had to ask. The face Claude made was worth the curious glances I drew from everyone around us. "Come on. I'll buy you dinner first." I leaned over further and looked up at the increasingly irritated man, trying his hardest to maintain composure and keep working.

"How long have you been tattooing?" I asked. It was a fairly innocuous question.

"Nearly 10 years," Claude answered quietly as though he were afraid to give me any more material to use against him.

"And you have your own shop?" I looked genuinely interested as I flipped through the photobook he had placed out in front of his side of the booth. It was good work, excellent actually. Nothing compared to the work the Undertaker pulled off, but Claude's technical skill was nearly flawless.

"Yes. I own my own studio."

I hummed and considered for a moment. I closed the book and then looked up at him again. "You are going to be so embarrassed."

"What in the hell are you talking about?" he snapped, slamming the palms of his hands flat on the counter and leaning in until he was face-to-face with me. His eyes were dark and I knew that I'd hit a particularly sensitive nerve.

I should probably have backed off. I should have turned around and continued to set up my station so I could fuck off and hit some pubs with the other artists who actually wanted to hang out with me. I should have apologized and then kept my mouth shut.

What I did say was, "I'm only two years out of my apprenticeship under one of the most infamous and talented men in the industry. My first convention is the biggest and most attended in all of Europe. I'm younger than you, a better artist than you, and God knows I'm a hell of a lot sexier. You're going to be so embarrassed when I out tattoo you too."

And that's the story of when my future boss nearly broke my nose.


	5. Trasmission

***Red wine and good music are essential to the writing process on a Saturday night, but I wouldn't be able to keep up the pace without my muse.***

It's easy to leave again when everything you own fits into three bags. It's difficult to leave again when you don't have a car and your overprotective aunt insists on driving you two states away to look at potential apartments. She had gone years without seeing me for more than a weekend at a time, and now she couldn't bear the idea of being without me. Part of me wanted to be indulged and taken care of, particularly after the circumstance I had just left, but I knew I would get tired of the constant attention. I already was.

What I really needed was to create a new life for myself. A new start, as cliched as it was to say. Life in Boston was great. The house was comfortable, the city was enjoyable, and I was far from Montreal. Unfortunately, it wasn't my life, it was Aunt Anne's. She had carved out a place for herself and made it into what she wanted and she seemed happy with it. Successful and elegant, still young enough to draw the attention of men everywhere she went, but happy with the one she had chosen and installed in her townhouse.

"You were such a happy child," Aunt Anne said with a frown. NPR played quietly on the radio, the monotonous voices of American civilized political discourse and the smooth motion of the car making my eyelids heavy. We were in the car again, a perfect time for her to ambush me with conversation.

"What?"

"You wear all black all the time and you never smile. You look so grim."

"You wear all red all the time," I retorted.

"Red is a happy color. The color of passion!"

"Or anger and violence."

"Or love," she said. "Black is just death and despair."

"Or couture," I shot back, a smirk on my face. I am witty.

"There's a smile from my grim child!"

"Hmph."

"Are you certain you don't want to look for a place in Salem? It seems like the sort of place you'd enjoy."

"Quite sure."

"It's no trouble. The exit is coming right up."

"You know the modern town of Salem is not where any of the atrocities happened. It's a tourist trap."

"Well, Portland is still closer than Montreal, so I guess I'll learn to live with it."

It was early afternoon by the time we left the highway and the GPS guided us across the water and through an assortment of one-way streets, past a small hospital and a little neighborhood full of bars and galleries. It reminded me of Quebec and of Boston, but it was quiet and peaceful as we drove through to our destination.

The first building was brick and brownstone with a small set of elegant stairs leading to the dark wooden door and its brass knocker. The street itself was a quiet one-way, only a few blocks from the water and lined with tall, old trees. I had already made up my mind before we walked up to the third-floor apartment. The realtor stood expectantly in the doorway, addressing her questions to my aunt who cheerfully chatted on as she looked around. The ceilings were high and the rooms felt appropriately old and not deliberately stripped of character. The fireplaces, one in the bedroom and one in the living room, were replaced with new gas units that worked with remote controls and the kitchen was modern for all I cared to cook.

I wrote out a check for three month's rent and handed it to the realtor. "It's fine. I'd like to move in as soon as I can."

The realtor looked at me, then to my aunt and then back to the check. She shifted uneasily in her low-heeled pumps. I had the impression that she wasn't expecting to have me as the tenant after directing her polite conversation to my aunt and largely ignoring me.

"We'll need to get you some furniture then. Is there a shop nearby?" My aunt asked the realtor with a ruby-lipped smile.

Another few hours and all paperwork was signed and everything was ordered and set to be delivered over the next week. Aunt Anne and I were headed back to Boston.

"Grell will be so upset that you're leaving us," she said.

"Will he?"

"Of course, my darling. He'll come up with us next weekend to help you get settled."

I found myself wondering what sort of person Grell Sutcliffe actually was. In the past week, I had spent more time with him than I had in the previous five years combined, yet I knew virtually nothing about him. He was always quick to indulge every and all whims and commands that Aunt Anne had for him and seemed happy enough to do so. I had a difficult time believing anyone was truly that subservient without some other motive. My aunt was certainly a dominant personality, but I doubted she had beaten the man into submission. There was just something about him that made me think his agreeableness was just an act. Maybe he was out committing horrible atrocities at night while my aunt was asleep. Maybe she helped him. She seemed a bit too put together to be real herself. There was a certain sinister darkness in my family and I wasn't entirely convinced it was limited to my father's side.

"You're extra quiet. Are you having second thoughts, my darling?"

"Not in the least."

"Will you miss us?"

"Of course. And I'm very grateful for all of the help you've given me. I'm not sure what I would have done without you. I'm just really looking forward to some time alone."

I hadn't ever lived alone before and the prospect was both terrifying and exciting to me.

What I really wanted was to go home, close the door, slide the lock and know I would be entirely and completely alone. No one lurking around the house like a black stormcloud. No one to slide into my bed, drunk and cold and promising harsh words if I didn't bend completely to his will. No explosions of temper and fits of chaotic violence. Just me. Just quiet.

...

Friday afternoon, we headed back north, this time with Grell sitting in the passenger seat while I huddled into the back of the car. In addition to my own bags, they had brought along new towels, linens and some kitchen wear so I wasn't moving into an entirely empty flat. None of it mattered to me. I wasn't worried about my day-to-day comfort as much as I craved silence. It was a flurry of chaos until they finally kissed me goodbye and their car vanished from my street. I slid the lock into place, pressed my back against the door and closed my eyes. The silk of the black patch still felt foreign against my skin. I untied the string holding it in place and threw it as far from me as I could.

Of all the unnecessary junk that I now had in this new space, the one thing I wished for in that moment was a stereo with speakers that could make the hardwood floor rumble and the windows shake. Instead, I plugged the tiny earbuds into my phone and scrolled to a familiar album and let a familiar voice ease me back into my own skin. Never had I felt so detached from myself as I did in that moment. I felt myself slide back like I was lowering into hot bathwater, first my legs and then my torso, slowly until it finally went over my head. I breathed in and let it fill my lungs. Beautiful warmth. It wasn't the space but the music that made me feel at home.

 _No language, just sound, that's all we need know._


	6. Beat the Devil's Tattoo

**Despite the many canine interuptions, I was still able to get this chapter finished with the help of my favorite muse. My very own Sebastian.**

I saw Claude at nearly every convention I worked but after that first weekend, we would never be forced to share a booth again. The truly unfortunate thing was the more time I spent with the other artists, too many of whom had lives similar to my own, the more I grew to admire Claude. He was rarely without his black suit though he removed the jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves to work. Unlike a lot of his contemporaries, his ink was kept neatly under his clothes in the traditional Japanese style, the one aesthetic we both shared. He was always prepared and professional and his work was annoyingly consistent.

Eventually, I swallowed enough of my pride to have him do a little work on me, adding a warrior to contend with the demon on my back. It was the last night of a convention in Toronto when the crowd was down to the final dregs and I could see he was bored. I walked over to his booth and stripped off my shirt, flaunting my perfect body until he conceded to work on me. Drew a little bit of a crowd too. Claude's Japanese artwork was perhaps even better than the Undertaker, partially because he had traveled to Japan to learn under some of the modern masters, and partially because he was a stickler for the rules of the style where the Undertaker was apt to follow his own set of rules. I suspected that Claude himself was at least partially Japanese himself but I never asked.

After I broke the stalemate, he, in turn, asked me to do work on him. Five hours of silence while I drilled away on his thigh only to get a nod when I was done. I suppose if it hadn't been up to his standard he would have never asked in the first place, and he would have been sure to say something negative at the end. Despite our differences and my extreme need to antagonize him, over the years we built what you could almost call a friendship.

My life at that time was a fluctuating mess punctuated by good times, completing an epic sleeve for a favorite customer or getting to work on guys from great bands as they stopped in the city on tour, and also bad times when I felt myself slipping into harmful behaviors. Like most former junkies, I had addictive tendencies that got directed to other behaviors. Sometimes drinking. Most often smoking. And then more recently sex.

I had denied that part of my life long enough that when I found release, I hit it hard and as often as possible. It wasn't a romantic relationship but more of a sexual chess match that took me out of my comfort area and kept me interested.

My release came in the most unlikely package. My new hobby was a glasses-wearing, black suit-clad, straight-laced son of a bitch. Fuck me if he didn't remind me of a Claude every fucking time I saw him. I fought against it like hell and lost. I kept fighting every time my phone went off and he summoned me to Manhattan to fuck him senseless. Somehow he was exactly what I needed and I think I was the same for him.

Right around the time that I felt like my life might level out, that I might find some strange version of happiness, an old friend decided to look me up.

I had been out of prison for more than six years when he strolled through the door of the Crypt. I swear I smelled the fucker before I saw him, the reek of cheap incense and opium was soaked into his clothes and it immediately shot through my memory in the way that scent can. My tattoo gun nearly fell from my hand in my haste to turn around. I thought I was free and clear but here he was. I had been so careful not to say anything, never breathing a word of who I'd worked for or where I'd come from. I had done my time and then detached. Why was he here now?

The Undertaker was there, layers of dusty black clothes and long gray hair blocking my view, but I knew it was Lau.

"What brings you across the bridge, my old friend? Are you here to be measured for a casket?" the Undertaker asked.

"Ah, yes. I remember this place," Lau said, looking around with his heavily lidded eyes. He was accompanied by his female bodyguard, petite, angry-looking, and entirely silent. "It's been too long, I thought I would check in."

"This is a long way to come for a social visit." The Undertaker's tone was oddly serious. Lau largely ignored this as he continued to look around the room, his gaze eventually falling on me. My client, a regular in my chair, sat silent, understanding something was going on but not knowing exactly what.

"You've taken on an employee," Lau said.

"Yes, my first. One of the best artists on the island. Unfortunately, he's kept very busy."

"I can see that."

"You'll have to make an appointment if you want to stay much longer," the Undertaker said.

"No need, no need, old friend. I'll say good bye for now." Lau took his hand out from the pocket of his blue tracksuit and tossed a small plastic bag to me. Reflex kicked in and I stuffed it into my pocket before it could be seen, though everyone in the room had seen exactly what it was. Once the door closed, and the pressure in the room seemed to ease, the Undertaker let out a repressed laugh he must have been holding in.

"Another ghost from the past, eh?" he asked aloud slapping the glass that covered the mummy, Apophis. If he said anything back, I didn't hear it, though the old man continued to laugh. I changed my gloves and went back to work letting the ice water settled into the pit of my stomach.

Several days later at the end of the evening, the Undertaker and I were alone in the shop. He hadn't mentioned the incident with Lau or anything regarding my connection to Lau in the past but he looked at me now through the fringe of hair that covered his scarred face.

"I've taught you about all I know, I suspect you'll be wanting to head off to find your own crypt soon."

I hadn't said anything, but I knew I had to leave. It was painfully obvious that Lau was making some sort of claim on me and I wouldn't be safe if I stayed at the Crypt or even in the city. Tattooing was the only thing keeping me in New York and I could do that anywhere. I had offers constantly to do guest spots at studios all over the world.

"You're still carrying that packet around with you," the Undertaker said. It wasn't a question, he knew.

"I am."

"You're listening to the demon on your back then."

"Sometimes I think that I am the demon."

The Undertaker laughed his unique cackle. "You always were good at making me laugh."

I would miss the crazy bastard, but as he said, it was time for me to find my own crypt.

Occasionally Bard would send me a text message saying where he was and making sure I was keeping out of trouble. He had moved in with yet another woman, this time a hippy chick up in New England. He was still working in restaurants and DJing. I took advantage of one of his messages to make my plans.

 _Do you think I could crash with you for a few weeks? I got a job offer I think I'd like to pursue._

 _Yeah._

 _Yeah? That was easy._ I replied.

 _The woman is gone on a yoga retreat. Come on up. You have to share a room with Byron though._

 _Who the fuck is Byron?_ I asked.

An image text came through of Bard looking very serious with an equally serious looking brown pitbull on his lap.

 _Jesus Christ. Is that Scooby-Doo?_

Bard texted back. _Byron is my son and I love him more than you._

 _I hate dogs. If he snores as bad as you the deal is off._

 _That sounds like a you problem. At least he stays out of trouble._

As my hand reached into my pocket and felt the heroin warm and nestled inside the baggie, I acknowledged I was approaching trouble quickly. Ultimately, I did accept a job offer from Claude. Of all people, I decided to work with him. The absolute asshole that he was, he seemed to sincerely want me to work with him. The kicker was that he happened to be in the same city as Bard.

The next problem was to figure out what to do with William. I hated to use a phone to convey anything significant. It seemed to me that anything should be said face-to-face if there was any amount of respect for the person you desired to communicate with. I considered William and I questioned my feelings on that particular matter while I punched out a text message.

 _I'm leaving New York._ I looked at it for a full five minutes, thinking noting in particular until my eyes burned from looking at the tiny screen in the dark of my room. My thumb twitched and I hit send. It took only a moment before the phone buzzed in reply.

 _When?_ I looked at the word and sighed.

What did I expect him to say? What did I hope to achieve here? I could have left without saying anything. Why didn't I?

 _Tomorrow._

I let the incoming call sit for three full rings before I answered.

"What?"

"I want to take you out to dinner," the dry voice on the other end of the phone said.

"That's not really our thing." Which was true. For all the time we spent together, we had not ever shared a meal or done anything vaguely date-like.

"Does it matter?"

Did it matter? It was quite possible that I would never see the man again. I owed him something for the last six months, even if I didn't want to admit it. I would leave New York having had exactly one date. One amazingly horrible date.

Near to three in the morning that night, Bard would rescue me from myself. I was sitting in the worst dive bar I could find in the posh part of Manhattan.

 _You're still coming tomorrow?_ He asked.

 _Yeah. That still cool?_ I typed back thinking about how it was already tomorrow and that I hadn't slept or sobered up. It was going to be a long drive, but I had a new care and who the fuck cared?

 _Still cool. Can't wait to see you, man._

I could have just stayed up another few hours, drank another few beers and then left that horrible city behind. But I heard the voice of the Undertaker. "Can't do that and stay above ground and free."

 _I gotta sleep this off and then I'll be on the road._

Everything, my entire life was packed into the trunk of a '65 Fastback waiting for me. I was ready to leave that shithole forever.


End file.
